How many years until all 5th gen consoles can be emulated with pixel-perfect accuracy and with minimal system requeriments?
I was never clear on which generation number was which. Like, I think EA once called the 360/PS3 the “eighth generation.”
Going by Wikipedia’s definition, I guess you mean PS1, N64, etc.?
I think we’re pretty far along on that dream. I feel like the last five or ten years in particular have really advanced N64 emulation in a very comfortable direction. It used to be that with Project64 or something you used to have to micromanage all of these compatibility settings in your video plugin, and there were a lot of very important games (like Paper Mario) that straight up did not work.
But Paper Mario is in a pretty stable place these days. And with Mupen64 in RetroArch, I haven’t had to touch a compatibility setting in long, long, long time.
Pixel perfect? Well, no, I guess not. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron still doesn’t emulate as I recall, and games like Jet Force Gemini still require weird encryption workarounds in order to be playable at all.
With Mupen64, you can even drop the resolution down to 320x240, turn on anti-aliasing, and three-point texture sampling to get that smeary, blurry N64 look. Is it totally, unflinchingly accurate? No, but I’d say we’re 90-95% of the way there.
“Minimal system requirements” is a moving target, too, because minimal ten years ago means something very different from what “minimal” will be ten years from now. For what it’s worth to me, my Android tablet (A Samsung Galaxy Tab A, 2017 edition) can run many N64 games just fine.
And I would argue we haven’t reached a point where SNES and Genesis games run “pixel perfect” with “minimal system requirements.” That Android tablet I just mentioned that can run N64 games? It can’t run bsnes/higan.
Really the point I’m trying to make here is that all of this stuff is relative. I think we’re in a pretty good spot, now. Not perfect, but I’m comfortable.
